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Comment by ajsnigrutin | Hacker News Reader

I'd like to date a really hot supermodel with education and a lot of money too, but well, I can't, and I can still be (and am) in a happy relationship.

To skip the main controversial topic, I find it interesting (and sad) how in many developed countries, we've left men behind in education (eg. mine, slovenia, 50% more women than men in uni of ljubljana), and nobody is bothered by this. We have a bunch of "get women into stem" programmes and promotions, but a part of stem is the only field where men outnumber women in the university. If it was the opposite (more men in colleges), we'd be hearing a lot more of this topic, but now this always gets ignored.

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None of the men blaming hypergamy on their failure at attracting a rich and beautiful woman have put in the actual time. They say it takes about 10,000 hours to get good at something.

The numbers would seem to not support that everyone can marry above average. But what's above average to one person is below average to another so there's far more room for everyone marrying a person who fits their desires than a naive analysis would show.

Attracting other people is a skill. Growing and maintaining a healthy relationship is a skill. Put in the 10,000 hours if attracting specific qualities in a partner is a high priority.

10 000 hours is the number observed among elite performers (Olympic athletes, chess grandmasters, concert level musicians and the like) - I don't think most people complaining about the difficulty of contemporary dating are aiming to be in the top 1%.

That's a fair point. Nothing like 10,000 hours is required for most people to attract and keep someone who fits their criteria.

But the point was that if you're blaming other people or something like hypergamy instead of improving yourself then you're just looking for excuses.

The only place I've seen this topic discussed is here in Switzerland about men in teaching positions. Maybe also mentioned in healthcare but only as a general observation, not that anybody is thinking to do something about it (the healthcare I mean).

I've also seen this discussed on Swiss national television about more girls going to college (getting a "Matura"). This is also true for the "Berufsmatura". I don't know for sure but I would assume that this would directly correlate to the disproportionate amount of women attending a university.

Would you date someone really hot if she worked in a supermarket, and wasn't all that clever?

> Would you date someone really hot if she worked in a supermarket, and wasn't all that clever?

I would not care about her job, but a large difference in cognitive ability makes a relationship quite hard in my experience. Not only is it harder to grasp/explain complex situations, it usually also comes with stark differences in emotional control and interests. It will also make arguments one-sided, as the more intelligent party will usually be able to argue their position better, which will lead to frustration for either them (if the partner is refusing to change their opinion regardless) or their partner (if they give in, unable to argue).

Is she fun? Is she honest? Does she have the same values as me? Is her family very healthy and long lived? There are so many important factors you're leaving out. Not to mention that beautiful people often quickly rise to higher paid positions. Even if not so clever.

I'm sapiosexual, so really hot and not all that clever can't co-occur from my perspective. But education is orthogonal to intelligence and really not a factor. I'd probably find e.g. an intelligent woman raised in a hunter-gatherer society more attractive than an equally intelligent woman educated in an academic field I don't respect.

man are utilitarian, they choose things with goals in mind

get a good degree, have a good career, be set for life

but now... you could take 3 month training for a blue collar job and make the same money or you could do your own business which is easier than ever (

1. we're wealthier/more developed, you could put together a business plan and get money

2. the internet = low barrier to entry

why woman go to university?

Some people enjoy learning for the sake of it and not as a means to acquisition of capital. Those people are essentially forced to discover said enjoyment through years of mandatory education where that exists. And then those people make decisions based off their desires and dreams, notable not just those about money and status.

Sometimes people just want to learn. Sometimes they think that learning can help people and _that_ is what they really want.

> Some people enjoy learning for the sake of it

Nothing stops you from buying books about your favorite topic and using your personal time to get a deep understanding on said topics

> Those people are essentially forced to discover said enjoyment through years of mandatory education where that exists.

it's working wonders for modern generation

That's because it was never about helping "level the playing field" - thats just the message they placated the public with. Rather this is a patronage network; a way of giving gifts to client groups of the power structure.

“Never?” One can argue we’ve gotten as close as possible to a level playing field or even over shot in some areas, but to say that the cultural changes that have been fought and won over the last 100 years or so have never been about leveling the playing field is utterly detached from reality.

You do realize that, for example, a husband could legally rape his wife in any US state until the 1970s? This wouldn’t be illegal in every state until 1993!

Let me reiterate that: there were people in the United States of America who did not have any legal protection from rape until 1993.

Subjugation of women (and of minority groups) is not some mythical injustice and it’s not even a distant injustice.

We’re talking about thousands of years subjugation and vast amounts of progress being made in the last 50-100 years. It’s insane to refer to this as “never” been about fixing real problems.

Minor nit: hundreds of thousands?! Maybe let's just take this back to the beginning of recorded history in 2600BC? And ancient Egypt was apparently OK for women (or at least not worse than for men), to pick a random example.

No disagreement with the rest though.

I had typed an argument of that nature, but closed the tab because I didn't want to spend time arguing.

Now that you mention it, though, my problem is with the word subjugation, which isn't an accurate descriptor of what was happening 200,000 years ago when we were living in small bands in the woods, starving, being hunted by animals stronger than us.

There is no reason (that I’m aware of) to think that prior to recorded history we were somehow more restrained with groups/individuals who were weaker than us or outsiders.

But hey, I suppose you never know.

Edited to be sure not to distract from the actual thrust of the argument :)

Is the problem solved?

I mean, who measures at which point "women and minority groups" are not subjugated anymore? Is there any incentive for this moment ever coming to pass?

By the way, I'm not even against whatever progress was made. I do question whether the progress created actual improvement, but in truth I do not really care.

These are important and difficult questions and 100% distinct from the claim “this was never about leveling the playing field.”

I sincerely doubt that had any real implication. Transport was quite bad those days and dragging them across 50 states would be quite taxing on a horse. The law changed accordingly as the situation evolved

We're talking about affirmative action. These programmes are not designed to level the playing field, but to reward friends and punish enemies.

“Affirmative action” as an American legal concept emerged in 1961, 3 years before the Civil Rights Act and 14 years before women in America had a legally-protected right to apply for credit.

Feel free to argue that affirmative action was a mistake or is complete or has overshot its goal, or that it’s used as a tool of corruption in some instances, but you are simply incorrect when you suggest that these reforms originated out of some spontaneous ambush on reformers’ “enemies.”

Just like the patronage network of before, but this time with other people. I like this one more because I'm more closely associated with it.

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